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Thursday, January 3, 2013

Home for the Holidays...

Spending Christmas in northern CA with my daughter, son-in-law and grandson has become a tradition we enjoy. This year was especially exciting because it brought us "full circle" from our adventure that we embarked upon at this time last year.

California welcomed us with sunshine and views of green rolling hills and beautiful Mt Shasta covered with snow. The drive was easy considering others were also en route for the holidays, but seemed to drag on forever as we were anxious to be with our family.

Two glorious weeks went by way to fast. The first week my grandson (who is almost 4) was still in preschool, so I got to spend a day "observing". That actually was a lot of fun! He is in a Montessori school this year, so it was very interesting and amusing to watch the children take out various projects to work on with numerous components, and once completed, putting them all back without the teacher "reminding" them to (like at home). I was even served a nice tea by two of the students! Lovely. Later that week, Our little man completed enough tasks at home to earn the "Bat Cave" he had been desperately wanting for weeks. He was so excited he could hardly stand it. The fact that he had earned it was even better, making it his Bat Cave! That was the beginning of the marathon of hours and hours of Super Hero play between he and anyone who would play with him, which most of the time, was me. ;-) I kept running out of the proper expressions like "holy strawberries Batman! We're in a jam!"

The special Elf on the Shelf (aka Holly & joined by his friend Jolly) joined in on the Christmas fun this year. Evidently, "Elf on the Shelf" has been quite the thing this year with children. Playing around while they are sleeping, but "watching" while they are awake, to report back to Santa before Christmas Eve. Lucian is just at the right age to believe in all the wonderment of the season, so our "house elves" were quite fun. They even had a bit of "advise" to share with him when his actions of the day needed to be addressed a bit. Each morning our little guy would dash out of bed and run to see where his two elves were and what they had been up to the night before. It started each day off with a chuckle.

Christmas soon arrived and was filled with all the laughter and glee that one hopes for. I got such a kick out of watching Lucian open each present, very slowly then attempting to play with it, not even thinking about all the rest of the packages still waiting to be unwrapped! He soon got into the rhythm and made a great "mailman" as he called it as he passed out every one's packages. Afterwards, like all children, he took great pleasure in kicking and tossing all the ripped paper and boxes! Tradition continued with my daughter and I in making the simple crepes my mother (and her mother before her) made for breakfast. My son Aaron even sent me a picture & text showing me that he had fixed some too, even tho he was in Texas! It made my heart smile.

Fun activities were tucked in here and there as well. We did an
all-family outing to see the new Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away 3-D movie
that was a great success with all of us enjoying it thoroughly. We
also had the opportunity to visit the NASA AMES Exploration Center,
where Lucian showed me all around and how he is going to go to Mars
someday and grow carrots. We got to see a film about the recent Mars
landing along with various exhibits that we could touch and look into.
Very fun. My daughter and I got to have a special night out together.
First we went to "officially" purchase her new washer & dryer. They
had already picked them out, now came the time to do the actual
buying! That completed, we went to the theater and bought tickets to
see Les Miserables. It wasn't due to come on for another 90 min. so we
went to a tequila bar nearby and shared a Margarita, chips & salsa
by a nice heater and listened to live music. Lovely. We had seen the play
together, so had wanted to see the movie together too. Special night.
Lots of laughter and love = good memories to cherish. I even got some
lovely time with my daughter's friends. First, tea with her neighbor
and then a lovely Christmas Eve gathering.

It seems
like every holiday family gathering has to have a hiccup or two as well,
so did ours. Both grandson and daughter have been enjoying running and
have entered a few 5k/1k runs. They had signed up for one to do while
we were in town so we could watch and cheer them on. The run location
was a bit of a drive away and very early, so we left at o'dark early.
Once checked in, it was a matter of waiting for the start time, and so a
hope for a short nap. It was raining, cold & windy. Not what you
would call a lovely day. Top that with an antsy little boy, who just
couldn't settle down, mix it with a mom who was tired and what you get
is a recipe for failure. The decision to "go home and forget the race"
was made after a lot of tough thought. Later in the week, the very old
plumbing started to show their age. It seems they do this more in the
winter, and more so this winter than ever. They continued to back up
and cause poor Seth (and Alissa) awful, messy work again and again. It
was time to call the plumber and talk about new pipes. Oh the joys of
"home ownership". Ugh.

Alas, the time to leave
finally had to come...it always does. One thing I learned tho, was that
I can't go a whole year again without visits, so this coming year there
will be some short trips (some probably flights) back for the much
needed and loved hugs and giggles. There's nothing quite like it...

...on the road in California, Marie

If you wish to view the rest of the photos from this trip, you can at my
Flickr account at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/74905158@N04/

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2019- A NEW YEAR, A NEW JOURNEY

At the start of our grand adventure...

We can hardly believe it's now year seven for Jack and I, in our quest to "see the USA" in our 36' Tiffin Allegro Motorhome.

It all started in January, 2012, after retiring from the printing industry (Jack) and the San Diego Zoo (Marie). We sold our Escondido (California) home, put our remaining treasures in storage, bought the motorhome of our dreams (a 2008 little used beauty) and set out to see all that we could see!

Our only goal was to "follow the sun" as neither one of us are big fans of cold weather, especially driving in snow. Our first destination was to head slightly east towards friends. Several years ago we had a number of our friends who had abandoned the work-a-day-world in favor of a full-time RV life, two couples that had done that, now were living in Nevada, & Arizona and we wanted not only to see them, but to learn as much as we could from them!

With little more than their wonderful sage advise, we soon set off for the adventure of our life. We loved every moment of it; so much so, we are now going forth with year seven!

If you followed along with us during our first years, welcome to year seven, and thanks, as it's nice to have company (be sure to say "hi" sometimes)! If you are new to the blog, "welcome" and I hope you enjoy the trip.

You would think that after all these years, we'd "seen it all"...but no, we haven't! This is a beautiful country and we never get tired of discovering it. Every back road leads to a new and wonderful adventure! We finally have "crossed off" all the lower 48 states, but that doesn't mean there are no surprises left, no new campsites to explore, no new parks to visit and favorite spots to see once again!

We changed our "status" this year, in that we went from "being on the road full-time" to "being on the road part-time"...but the adventure is still the same!